so what is it that you are looking for (be the next you final chapter)

I know that I have previously posted the final chapter in the be the next you series of posts, but that was over two years ago, a lot has happened and I felt the need to update it with what I have learned, so here goes…

chess is like Martial arts

The Martial arts are a very personal thing. Some people take them for self defense; some people take them for competition, some people like the discipline and physical fitness aspect of martial arts practice. There is no best art, simply a best art for you.

When I started almost two decades ago my art of choice was Aikido (literally blending spirit way), It is a “softer” ju jitsu (gentle art), bigger movements, generally you stay on the outside of your opponent’s attacks, is not competitive and you generally don’t roll around on the ground with a would be assailer, at least that’s the plan. After about 2.5 years of Aikido I switched over to Judo. Why? Well what I was looking for changed. I wanted to compete.

I was no longer content with learning a self defense art with a more spiritual emphasis, I wanted to get onto a mat and pit my skills against an opponent, although Judo means gentle way the gentle is misunderstood, it is referring to the practitioner rather than the attacker, i.e. gentle means easier, when an opponent pushes you pull and vice versa, the results are anything but gentle for the poor person being thrown or held. I loved Judo and never stopped loving Aikido, but what I was looking for changed, hence my art of choice changed.

Similarly chess means different things to different people. I love the competition, I love improving and I love studying the game, but what is my primary objective? I just want to have fun playing and studying. When I started competing regularly three years ago I wanted to get better and become an expert and possibly a master. I slaved away at tactics puzzle books and got a little into Silman’s thinking technique. Now I am content to make as many tournaments as I can and study my vast collection of chess books. Why? A few reasons, firstly following a regimented improvement plan is time consuming and like it as not I’ve got shit to do. Things that get in the way of studying chess full time. Secondly I have found that following a regimented plan can lead to burn out and having parts of your training to become un-fun. Who wants a hobby that is not fun?

I know it sounds namby-pamby, after all an Aikido practitioner and a Tae Kwon Do practitioner are hard to compare, but in chess we have ratings, they are absolute. Well yes and no (I have a game at the end of the post that should tie this together)

Don’t get me wrong I’m not abandoning chess study, but I’m taking a more relaxed approach to it. I am keeping the things I like about chess and cutting away what no longer works for me. So no more circles, no more chasing and buying the latest book that promises to make me a champion and no more “quick fixes: and for God’s sake if I don’t feel like doing something, I’m not going to do it!

do something

I do believe that almost anything you do at the patzer lever will improve your game. If you like endgames, study them it will help your game. Are you at tactics junkie? Then get yourself on chess tempo and go nuts. I do believe some things are more beneficial rating wise than others, I’m still a firm believer in tactics study as the most economical way to improve your game, but if circles make you miserable…

Pick a path and stick with it for awhile, you’ll see improvement; at the very least it will stay fun for you.

what’s your game

I really don’t have much of an opportunity to make long time control games, stuff like 40/2 SD/1 (that’s 40 moves in 2 hours then sudden death in 1 hour) I have to be content with G60′s. Similarly I’m sure that some of you reading this can only get to G15 or G45 tourneys. This colors how you prepare. At shorter time controls I believe your opening repertoire is a bit more important, you either have to memorize a few openings (not wise, your opponent will deviate at some point and you will be wont for a plan) or you have to chose something that is more forgiving (I think this is a better choice). If you have longer time controls you can afford longer thinks. As a G60 player I allow myself two long thinks a game, by that I mean 10-15 minutes, so 20 upwards of possibly 30 minutes are going to be chewed up on two or three moves. Anything more than that and I’m probably in for a losing game.

Now if you shorten that you’re playing rapid chess and I think tactical vision is even more important, in G25 there simply is no room for long thinks, at least the definition is changed to 5-7 minutes and even that may be too much. What I’m trying to say is that if competition is your thing then you need to tailor a plan that fits the reality of your game.

I think this is why some old – timey recommendations aren’t as germane to players of today. We are told to start with open games first. Well what if you don’t have the time or inclination to learn the open games, especially if it comes at the cost of many lost games? What if you prefer just to use the KIA and get a stable form of development and figure things out? What if like me you are drawn to obscure openings? My advice? Play them, you may never become a master but at least you will enjoy yourself. My game at the end of the post should shed some light on this.

different strokes for different folks

A few examples of what I mean. Blunderprone likes studying the history of the game and annotates the games of past greats, I’m not sure if he’s still doing circles or not, but if you want to know something about a historic tournament he’s your guy. TommyG likes playing over master games, Donnie…well Donnie hangs out with a sentient egg and plays the KIA and KID almost exclusively from what I can tell and he’s shown improvement and enjoys the game. BDK pops his head up from time to time to lay down some of his ruminations about the game.

Who’s on the right path? All of them are. They are approaching chess in a way that is fun for them. Don’t get too hung up on ratings, I believe it’s unhealthy.

so what’s my plan

My new reality is going to be internet games, my new work schedule is Wed – Sat so weekend tourneys are out of the question for awhile. No biggie I will play in the G60 monthly STC tourneys at ICC. Although the time control is the same my reality has changed. I will no longer need the mental stamina to play 4 games in one afternoon. The downside is that if I am on the wrong side of a miniature I will not be able to recover until the following week; there will be no resetting of pieces and trying to recover in the next round that might be only an hour away. Psychologically it poses different challenges.

My study plan is simple, 15 minutes a day of tactical puzzles on the computer; I simply have no more time for this during my workweek. Two G60′s online followed by a deep analysis of the games, and work through a chapter of The Comprehensive Chess Course. All told that is about 7 to 8 hours of chess per week. That’s it that’s all I have time for right now.

As far as ratings go, I’m not too concerned. I will track them but I’m sure that if I stick to this plan my rating or more importantly my strength will go up.

relax

Relax and take your time, even if you are chasing after a master title it is going to take some time, so why not enjoy the ride? Don’t make this a job, you’ve already got one of those and you’re probably not thrilled with it, so why have another?

Before you start your chess journey, ask yourself what is it you’re looking to get from chess, and don’t be afraid to change the answer when it actually changes, be flexible.

as promised an example

Two weekends ago I played three rounds in a local tourney. My last game was against a gentleman whose last name contained almost all consonants. Hardened weekend warriors know this to mean a Russian dude whose rating may or may not indicate his true playing strength. I had black and in round 1 I played a very poor Caro-Kan against an opponent who outranked my by over 200 points. I played the opening very poorly and got a challenging middle game which I completely mishandled. I decided that for this game I would play something a bit more familiar to me and chose the Modern defense. Again my opponent out ranked my by 200 points. The game is below, with no annotations. The one challenge in playing something like the Modern is that since there are few forcing variations I typically have a hard time analyzing the game during the opening and early middle game stages finding a better move can be challenging or even confusing; although I have found this to be a blessing as I think I’m learning more about the game. I am still analyzing this game and didn’t want to include any incomplete analysis as I wanted some feedback from you folks unbiased by my opinion so here is the game unedited.

A few notes to the game.

1. My opponent normally plays in longer time controls.
   
2. He doesn’t much care if he wins or loses; he wants to create something beautiful over the chessboard. I believe him to be far stronger than I am.
   
3. I spent all of 5 minutes of clock time on my first 16 moves; the Modern is great that way.
   
4. I spent almost 40 minutes on moves 17 through 34. During his attack there were plenty of places for me to go wrong.
   
5. After the game everyone was telling us what a crushing attack he had, they even showed his force checkmate, but they were not entirely correct, they were referencing a variation where it was my turn to move not white’s, around move 27.
   
6. At the time I agreed with everyone that his attack was brilliant and almost felt bad that I had won. Now that I’ve been looking at the game for awhile, I think I played a pretty damn good game – no apologies from me!
   
7. What do you folks think? I’d love to get some feedback on this game.

Have a great week folks.